Eventually, he heard, the expense of black horses ruined the Count,
but it was widely said that he had failed as a true artist, and
also that he now sought someone to infect him with vampirism.

The Count was something of a Goth. As he was in Saxony (eastern Germany),
that would be counted as a horrible pun today. 1983 might or might
not be too early for that to be an intended pun. ("Goths" as a subculture
label was just emerging then, although "Gothic rock" as a musical genre
appeared earlier.)

Now it was another blue December day, and Gregory was riding among
five hundred soldiers all in black: the entourage of King
Edward V, at the gates of London. [...]
The King was dead, as the saying went, long live the
King.

Repeating the first sentence of chapter 10 (p265). Note that
it is still December of 1479; Edward has been dead
for at most two months.

[...] they were met by a group of men in scarlet: the Mayor and his
aldermen. [...] Then another tide of color flowed from the gates:
citizens, tradesmen, and guildsmen, dressed in deep violet that
still seemed bright against the black the King's
party wore.

This color-coded mob is straight out of contemporary accounts.

And the king drawing nere unto the citie, upon the .iiii. day of Maye,
was of the maior and his citizeins met at Harnesey parke, the maior
and his brethren beyng clothed in scarlet, and the citezins in violet
to the nomber of .v.C. horses, and than from thence conueyed unto the
citie, the kinge beynge in blewe veluet, and all his lordes and
seruauntes in blacke cloth, [...]

"There are people who call you a Scotsman, Richard,"
Hastings said. "In truth, that's a compliment beside some of
the things said in council. They were looking at the country as
ravens see a carcass. It was necessary that they be disarmed...
in one fashion, or another."

Richard nodded slowly. "Well. After seeing what Rivers
had in his mind, I can't say you were wrong... Surely you didn't
know--"

Hastings explains the business with the weapons (p290).
Note that everyone still accepts that Rivers threatened
Edward's life.

"I knew something was wrong when the council proposed [Rivers]
bring all the men he could muster: there would have been six thousand --
ten, possibly." Hastings scowled. "I had to threaten to go to
Calais, taking every ship and document I could find. [...]"

That is, he had to threaten to keep Rivers to the thousand-man
limit he asked for (p265). This occurred in our history as
well.

The messenger was an Italian diplomat, Dominic Mancini.
He wore a fawn-colored gown with restrained gold embroidery, and
half-eyeglasses. His English was extremely precise, his manner one
of courtly embarrassment.

Dominic Mancini was in London when these events were taking
place. However, he does not seem to have been fluent in English, so
the report he wrote (which is one of our main historic sources) contains
a great deal of recounted rumor and hearsay.

Since Mancini's report describes a great deal of
anti-Ricardian sentiment, his grasp (or lack) of English
was a significant point in the historical arguments for and against
Richard. Ford is gesturing at that point.

The claim that Genova (Genoa) is not Byzantine seems to contradict
Lorenzo's assertion (p72) that only three Northern
Italian states were free of Byzantium. At that point, Milan, Florence,
and Urbino were all still independent, which leaves no room for
Genova. This appears to be an inconsistency on the author's
part.

"It is the vote and ordinance of this council, therefore, that
the Duke of Gloucester shall be called Protector of the
Realm, and have in his charge the safety and protection of
King Edward the Fifth, [...]"

"I won't take that from you, Hastings," Buckingham said,
rather pleasantly. "The Queen's family didn't force
you to marry their leavings. Bring my wife into this and I'll
bring in your mistress: isn't Jane Shore the spiciest of
scraps from a royal table?"

Buckingham was married to Catherine Woodville, the Queen's
sister. The marriage was arranged when he was a boy, and he resented
it. Hastings, as he said earlier (p291-292), is involved with
Edward's mistress Jane Shore -- although she was
not a discarded mistress, as Buckingham assumes.

"My lord Protector. I have a gift for the King... by
your leave, of course?" He held out the jar. "Strawberries from
my garden. Picked this morning. The King's
physician suggested that fruit would be healthy for him."

There was another peculiar circumstance, here, now, and he thought
about speaking -- but it was the Duke of Buckingham's habit to
state the painfully obvious, and he merely put the jar on a table
and took out his knife to cut the seals.

Argentine wants to open the jar himself, although he drops the subject
immediately and nobody notices. See p304.

The "peculiar circumstance" that Dimi notices is not so painfully
obvious to the rest of us. (Ford's writing style in a nutshell.)
We will find it is that Argentine is a vampire. (On p304,
although we don't confirm that Dimi realized this until
p311.)

"[...] Further make clear that the Duke will
not be in a secret sanctuary, but in the Royal apartments, available
to view. And tell the Queen that Doctor Argentine
approves strongly of the idea."

Richard is trying to get Edward's brother out
of Elizabeth's hands; but also, as we will see, hoping that Dimi
can track down her hiding place.

The emphasis on "secret sanctuary" is a sharp comment to Elizabeth
on her defensive position. But it also gestures at a controversy in our
history: whether Richard was secreting the young
princes in a prison when he moved them to the
Tower of London.

Today the Tower is remembered as a prison and a treasure-vault.
Shakespeare used it as a dark herald of the princes'
fate in Richard III
(act 3, scene 1.)
However, the Tower was also a royal residence until the 1600s. There
would have been nothing specifically suspicious about
Edward and his brother staying there.
It was their removal from public view, and eventual disappearance,
which led to so much speculation.

This oath was one of the concessions Richard made
(p294) to get Woodville support for his Protectorship.

That distinction did not concern Dimitrios; another did.
But he told himself that he was not spying, not
committing frauds of himself. He was hunting [...]

Although we have not seen it, Dimi appears to have resolved never to
become a spy.

He certainly felt betrayed by spies as a child (p59),
but he showed no such specific reluctance in Scotland (p215).
His intention now may be a reaction to that mission, and its catastrophic
failure (at the hands of yet another spy, p225-226). In any case,
this scene will muddy that resolve.

Dimi said "The state may make no law that favors a faith. Since
not all faiths have a law of inviolability, such a law would favor
those that do. In the end... it was decreed by Justinian,
after the last Tarsite riots, that if the gods wished to keep
sanctuary they would themselves punish its violators. He said,
'Let those who would be safe in their gods pray, and keep a spear
sharp.'"

Further consequences of the Doctrine of Julian (p33).
Note that Richard is considering Byzantine law, even
though England is not under Byzantine rule. Possibly England has
legally adopted the Empire's religious principles. Or possibly the
Pantheon is considered Byzantine territory in some sense, which
would be politically provocative to violate. (Although, if that
were the case, it is unlikely that English legal ceremonies would
be set there.)

I cannot find any reference in our history to riots in Tarsus, in the
era of Justinian. (It was of course the site of many events of
Christian history, such as the birth of St. Paul.) Justinian is
famously associated with the Nika Riot, but that occurred in
Constantinople (see p379-380).

In this entire scene, Dimi carries himself with self-contempt --
ostensibly for failing to follow Mancini, but it likely goes deeper
than that. He is attempting to hold his self-worth steady on his
service to Richard, and it is not working. And note that
Richard does not encourage Dimi in this; if anything,
he very gently tries to dissuade him.

One of his kind had called it "the perfection." "Why on earth would you
resist it? You fill your body with garbage, but the body knows its own.
Men don't eat grass, but the cattle that graze on it; vrykolaka do
not drink from cattle--"

Vrykolakas is a Greek term for a vampire-like walking corpse.
"Vrykolaka" appears to be a typo; the correct plural is vrykolakes.

Gregory has been eating normal food until now. But there have been
other signs that his metabolism is changing: his hunger has been
rising faster than he expects (p268). This may be a normal progression
for vampires, or it may be because he has feeding more often
than was his habit (p268).

Our history:

"Perfection" was a notion of the Catharists, a medieval Gnostic sect.
Perfection consisted of rejecting the material world.
The most dedicated Catharists, called the Perfecti, were ascetics and
did not eat meat or dairy.

Gregory was not lying about going to Baynard's Castle; that was his
intent (p300). But he allowed Dimi to believe that he
was changing his living quarters, not just visiting to borrow a cup
of blood. It is not clear, however, why the distinction matters to
him.

If he had to encipher a long letter every few weeks, transmitted long
distances so that keywords could not be readily exchanged, it would
be the system of choice...

No ciphers are particularly associated with the famous Roman Plinys.
(Although Pliny the Elder described an invisible ink.) However, in
1859 of our history, a man named Pliny Earle Chase invented a
"fractionating" cipher which Gregory's description could plausibly
apply to.

By the time he reached the gates, the Heinzelmännchen would have
begun kicking holes in the word-lattice building up in his mind.

By the time Gregory was finished, and dawn was lightening the window,
he knew a great deal about the loyalties of a great many persons.
And one for whom loyalty was not the issue at all. And he knew whom
Margaret of Anjou had seen in his face.

"I also," Gregory said. "However, this gun was built by me. It uses
fulminate locks, which are touchy but never miss fire. It fires two
cylindrical bullets, three-quarters of an inch in diameter; the
bullets are sawn radially to expand and splinter. [...]"

"Fulminate locks" are gun-primers of chemical explosive, rather than
the flint or matchcord locks of more primitive guns. The bullets
Gregory describes would be called "dum-dums" in our era; they
cause very large wounds.

Our history:

According to our legendry, bullets with a cross cut into them are good
for hunting vampires. The expanding property of nose-cut bullets is
sometimes given as a real-world basis for those legends. Similarly,
silver bullets expand when striking flesh, because silver is a soft
metal; the same logic can be applied.

[Argentine] gestured toward the jar on the table. "Do you
mind if I finish opening that? I think it'll interest you." He
picked up the shears. "This has to be done properly: break the
lead and it'll be full of strawberries. Ah. Ecco esso, professore!"

Gregory could smell it as soon as Argentine lifted the lid:
warm, fresh, human blood.

Ecco esso, professore! Italian: "Here it is, professor!"

This is identical to the jar Morton brought (p294),
and it explains Argentine's behavior earlier; he wanted to open that
jar himself (p296). Dimi didn't know the secret,
and got the strawberries instead of the blood.

The trick jars are obviously created by Morton, as a magical
way of smuggling blood in for Argentine. They also, as we will see,
keep the blood warm, fresh, and liquid.

"[Edward will] be all right now," Argentine said.
"They said a Ricci of Fiorenza treated him, and I can't believe it --
rare disease, beautiful surgery. But it could not cure him, of course.
I know the disease [...] and for this one only I am the cure. Forgive
me, Professor. Only we."

Was this part of the original scheme that Buckingham and Morton
collaborated on? Morton is certainly involved now. However,
Hastings said earlier (p293) that he chose
Argentine as Edward's physician. Nothing in the
story has made Hastings appear untrustworthy. However again,
it is possible that his choice was influenced by magic.

It is also possible that this is all an improvisation -- that
Morton met Argentine and saw an even better way to control
Edward than he had originally planned.

[Gregory] reached into his bag, produced the translation of
Mancini's letter. "We have a great deal of trouble. I hope that
these are men you can trust."

Cautiously, the Duke reached for the papers, glanced at them.

"Yes, Professor, they are absolutely loyal to me,"
Buckingham said, and signaled for his men to close the door.

A very brief palming of the narrative: the reader will at first assume
that it is the Duke of Gloucester who has entered, not
Buckingham. We now realize that Gregory has tipped his hand to
the wrong player.

Buckingham stabbed a finger at Hastings. "We have considered
you very long, sir, and it is that consideration that has allowed
you to carry out your considerable crimes." He swung his finger
on Dimi and the troopers. "Take this traitor out and consider
him properly!"

[...] Bennett was the only one moving then. He laid both hands
on Hastings's blue velvet sleeve, [...]

And indeed Hastings is executed, moments later. The crime he is
accused of, as we will see, is King Edward's assassination.

Our history:

In June of 1483, Richard accused Hastings of treason,
and had him sent to the Tower for immediate execution. Buckingham
supported him in this, but did not give the order.

Richard's reasons are the subject of much historical debate.
Possibly he was preparing to take the throne, and acted to remove a powerful
politician who was unswervingly loyal to Edward. Possibly
Hastings really was involved in some plot with
Elizabeth Woodville.

Dimi was struggling to think. Something seemed to be preventing him,
like a hand closed on his mind. He wanted to draw his sword, use it.
Surely there must be another traitor here.

As on p281, Dimi is having trouble thinking,
Richard is furious, and Buckingham is maneuvering
to have people executed. It seems inescapable now that Buckingham
is responsible. (Although he will turn out not to be a wizard himself;
see p327.)

This story certainly comes from Buckingham. Note that although
Buckingham appeared carrying sheets of paper (p306), they are
not necessarily Gregory's translation of Mancini's report.
Buckingham seized that, and has every reason to manipulate what
Richard learns.

As we know from p260, it was Morton who killed
Edward, but with Buckingham's aid, not Hastings's.
Buckingham may be trying to dispose of an ally who is no longer of
use. Or, possibly, the accusation may have no force against Morton.
It certainly doesn't appear to worry him.

"I thought it was over bloody Calais. And it was just my brother's merry
harlot. Well, we'll bring her in as well, and if she's a witch we'll
have it out of her."

Morton said calmly, "Mistress Shore isn't a witch, you know.
Questioning her would be most unnecessary [...]"

Hastings was the Lieutenant of Calais under Edward.
Richard is presumably musing about his earlier suspicions,
about what lay behind Rivers's (supposed) coup attempt (see p291). Now,
he thinks, he has the real traitor -- Hastings -- in hand, and
the motive is simply jealousy.

Our history:

Jane Shore was arrested at the same time as Hastings, and on the same
charges -- conspiracy with him and with Elizabeth. She was imprisoned,
not executed, and eventually regained her freedom after the King's
solicitor became fond of her.

Morton swept his hand along the sword. There was a sparkling
light as it passed, and then the blade was clean. Morton
knelt, rubbed the same hand down Stanley's wounded arm. Then
there was no blood there either, nor tear in the fabric of
Stanley's sleeve.

Morton goes out of his way to magically clean away the
blood, and apparently heal Stanley's arm. (The latter is not
stated, but seems to be the case.) Either collecting blood is valuable
for his own purposes, or for the jars he makes
(p304).

It is also possible that the blood powers his healing spell;
that could be implied by the use of the "same hand." (We know, from
p253, that Morton's healing has a price in suffering.)

Buckingham said "Your Professor has not deciphered the
entire message yet. But they are definitely mentioned, in connection
with Wales."

Again, Buckingham is using his own version of Gregory's
translation (see p307); there is no reason to believe
anything he says. However, he is also using a version of the
truth; he knows that Cynthia and Hywel became involved
in Wales (p260).

"Then [Morton] must have been the one she thought she saw,
when..." He was trying to remember what Hywel had said. And
Gregory had been there too. "You said Doctor Argentine was
not one of them," he said, feeling suddenly very cold, "but I'm
certain he must be. Some remaining part of Mancini's letter
must mention him--"

The name is a small anachronism; it was called the "Garden Tower" at
this point in history. The name "Bloody Tower" may have arisen as a
reference to the deaths of the Princes in the Tower, which have not
(quite) yet occurred in the narrative. Alternatively, the term may
date from the suicide of Henry Percy in 1585.

(Possibly the term exists in TDW history as a reference to
vampires. Dimi mused (p299) that the Tower must have
some system for feeding vampires kept at hand, or imprisoned,
by the Crown.)

Note that George was not walled in alive; his cell was sealed after
his execution (p195).

Shakespeare's plays:

In Richard III, one of the murderers decides to (temporarily) hide
George's body in "some hole" after they drown him.
(Act 1, scene 4).

We finally get the full truth about Mancini's letter. Note that
Hastings had a secret after all; and it was the one which may
have been true in our history as well (see p306-307).
But he was not involved with Byzantium. (He mistrusted Mancini
in his public role as Elizabeth's messenger, not as the
Byzantine spy.)

But then who was the one Gregory noted (p303) was
not motivated by loyalty? It can't have been Buckingham, because he
wasn't in the letter (p312). Argentine and Morton
are the remaining major players; but we know little about their
loyalties as yet.

"But Mancini was writing to the Byzantine
spymaster in Genova -- his name is
Angelo Cato, if we are ever able to make use of that -- about
master plans. Suppose that Buckingham is not part
of that plan."

"But we know he's allied with them."

"Perhaps they have not told him he is not a part."

We learned earlier (p293) that Genova (Genoa) is not
under Byzantine domination, but of course they would have
agents there.

Our history:

Mancini wrote about the events surrounding Richard's
accession to Angelo Cato, an archbishop in France and a counselor
of King Louis.

Note that Mancini was writing openly to Cato; it was only the
contents of the letters that was hidden. So Cato's
tradecraft was imperfect. He should have had the
letters go through a third party, so that his own secrecy was
not predicated on Mancini's.

It is also curious that he is called "Angelo"; this is a
Christian-derived name which should not be common in TDW history.
The other Angelo of our history who shows up in TDW is
Angelo Poliziano, as "Arturo" (see p65).

(Although, really, most of the names familiar from English
history -- John, James, Anne, and so on -- were taken from the
Christian bible. In TDW history, they should exist only as
obscure Jewish forms. I take their presence as a concession
to comprehensibility.)